I don’t know if 16th Century poet Michael Drayton can be considered a great man, but he was esteemed by literary critics at the time. Here’s an excerpt from his long-form poem “The Moon-Calf”, (a moon-calf is an abortive fetus of a cow, sometimes applied to human fetuses). Colloquially, it had come to mean during its time in common usage any grotesque thing. Drayton hasn’t a kind word for androgynes, which he thinks “pollute the earth”.
Quoth one, ” ‘Tis monstrous, and for nothing fit;
And, for a monster, quick, let’s bury it.”
“Nay,” quoth another, “rather make provision,
If possibly, to part it by incision,
For were it parted, for aught I can see,
Both man and woman it may seem to be.”
“Nay,” quoth a third. “that must be done with
And, were it done, our labor is but lost: [cost;
For when w’ have wrought the utmost that we can,
He’s too much woman, and she’s too much man:
Therefore, as ’tis a most prodigious birth,
Let it not live here to pollute the earth.”
The great men knew that masculine women and feminine men are abominations against nature. They would weep to see their descendants glorifying what once they thought a blight upon the earth.
